Memorized
by Bardicsidhe
Summary: [Tristan x Duke x Joey] Duke’s livelihood keeps him away from home much of the year…but believe you me, coming home is worth the wait.


**Title:** Memorized  
**Rating: R for suggestive situation and language**  
**Category:** Humor/Romance  
**Pairings:** Tristan x Duke x Joey  
**Summary:** Duke's livelihood keeps him away from home much of the year…but believe you me, coming home is worth the wait.  
**Notes:** Written as a birthday present for Falsechaos. Overly sentimental, a little saccharine, lacking in serious plot, but hey, it's the first time I finished a Kickshipping fic. Happy birthday! I never write Shizuka the right way, or I'd have written your favorite pairing for you. This was also written while listening to Nickelback's "Feeling," so if you notice similarities...I couldn't help myself. It started out as Chaseshipping. And then my Gratuity Muse whispered "hey, y'know...Joey could be in the shower..."

-

It felt like six in the morning, but his internal clock knew it was more like ten – give or take for jet lag – when his eyes flickered open. The hotel shades were preserving the false sense of dawn. Hotel shades? _Where am I?_ Fragments of thought drifted in with the filtered light, refusing to hook up at the proper ends.

The mattress jounced beneath him as the sleeping body beside his shifted, and _then _he remembered. As though someone flicked a switch wired to the edge of his soul. Electric live wire. Pure joy. He wasn't alone. Gingerly, Duke rolled onto his side, and his hand sneaked under the stiff, nylon-weave cover, batting the sheets aside until it contacted the living warm silk of skin. The sharp point of a hard hip. Following the subtle hills of muscle-bound ribs from there, he found where torso joined shoulder. There was the tattoo, gotten years ago, a band of tiger stripes circling the bicep. He traced the pattern lightly and moved on, down the underside of an arm, warm, loose and relaxed with sleep. Touching with the backs of his fingertips and the rounded edges of manicured nails, in a way that tingled and tickled at the same time.

There was the scar, right in the dimple of the elbow, a landmark on the familiar body. A touchstone. One of many. On the other side of his forearm, there would be a long white crescent drawn from elbow to wrist. The knuckles would be a little misshapen, but the palms broad; the fingertips long, strong, with blunt fingernails.

_Tristan_.

Forty-eight hours gone since he'd come to San Francisco, and they hadn't left the hotel room since his arrival. He felt lightheaded and tired, eyes sore when he reached up to rub one, and it came away a little smeared and dark – eyeliner. He was a mess. And this was the first time in a long time that he'd found his makeup smeared and didn't give a damn. In fact, he reveled in the knowledge that his eyes were probably black all the way around and his strawberry lip gloss long ago eaten. But nevertheless, it was time to take care of it, before Tristan woke up and caught him. So…shower.

He was good at getting out of bed without waking his partner up – had perfected that trick long before Tristan ever came on the scene. The bathroom was on the other side of the wall. He walked soft-footed and naked across the quiet beige carpet and the muffled dark to where a crack of light showed under the door.

The water was already running when he got there. Hah. So Joey beat them _both _this morning. Quietly, he slipped inside, and left the door open a little, too. Just in case anyone else needed a shower too.

His ponytail didn't do to think about – and a look in the mirror showed it to be skewed and tugged halfway out, strands of stiff, gelled hair falling sloppily on either side of his face. And his face? Oh, no doubt about it. Duke smirked at his reflection. "Well, I look fucked."

There was a thump and a muffled ring of metal on the other side of the translucent shower curtain as someone grabbed the handicapped railing. "Oi! Doesn't anybody ever _knock _around this joint?" Joey yelped, and shoved his head around the shower curtain.

"Hey, keep it down, Tristan's still asleep," Duke grinned over his shoulder at the younger man, wet blonde hair plastered across his eyes in a shaggy fringe and streaming down his shoulders. Joey shoved his hair back and returned the grin, brown eyes half-lidded, sated and still a little sleepy.

"Yeah, I'll bet he is," He snickered, and then raised both eyebrows at the other's appearance.

"You look like hell."

"Thanks," Duke responded, amused, "four-hour flights and hot men tend to do that to a person."

"I'll help take it off ya," Joey offered, and the sleepy smile twisted into a smirk. Duke pushed away from the counter and stepped over the lip of the tub and into his arms.

"You did a pretty good job of it earlier," he chuckled, turning into the spray and closing his eyes. Joey passed him a damp washcloth – "please tell me that this hasn't been where I think it has" – and he scrubbed the last of the night's sleep (and lack of) from his face. Joey, already finished and merely lingering in the shower for the sake of the hot water on a cold winter morning, took his time drawing lazy kisses across his lover's shoulders.

"Joey, we've been…mmn…we've been at this for two days," Duke protested, arching his back when familiar hands splayed against his stomach and gentle teeth dragged across his skin.

"Naw, we haven't. We _did _sleep. Sorta." Joey's chuckle was warm, warm like the spray of water streaming down Duke's throat as he tilted his head back. "I missed ya."

"I know," the other replied quietly, hooking his hand around the back of Joey's head, tangling in the clean, soaked strands of blonde hair, and smoothed it down slick with his fingertips. "I missed you both."

"Why don't ya come stay here? Tristan and I…we need ya. That big old place is more than either of us had when we were kids." But it was an old argument, and Duke never answered, nor did Joey press him for one. It was just his way of letting their mate know how much he was wanted, more convenient and said with more feeling than an "I love you" on cue.

Instead, Duke turned, and pressed his chest to Joey's. He was still a mystery sometimes, reticent as he was by nature and by habit, but those gentle brown eyes never lied. He thought of Tristan's body when he was away…and of Joey's eyes. Soft, exploratory sips of skin followed shared smiles – eyelids and foreheads touched, hard ridges of stubbled jaws. Their mouths meshed finally, perfectly.

Joey snickered against his lips when Duke said that he was going to need a new tube of strawberry gloss because of them, the beasts. Couldn't they get their daily intake of chapstick from somewhere else, and stop eating his?

A deep voice from the other side of the shower curtain answered that he shouldn't put it on if he didn't want someone to kiss it off, making both men in the shower jump, and then grin sheepishly at each other.

The scent of Tristan's aftershave still clung to him when he pushed the curtain back and joined the other two, and the humidity of the small space seemed to double it. It was as familiar to Joey by now as his own skin, but Duke inhaled deeply, shivering when slick living walls of flesh closed in on him from both sides. Tristan swept the damp trails of hair from his shoulders and bent to kiss the back of his neck.

"Mornin', sunshine," Joey teased Tristan, slicking back his taller brunette lover's hair, "what, did we wear ya out?"

"Damn right you did," Tristan complained cheerfully, and snaked his arms around Duke to tweak the other's man's ribs, grinning against the nearest shoulder when Joey yelped. "I swear, Duke, you've got to stay here. A week. Two weeks. _Please_. I live with a damn weasel!"

"You want me to come home, so I'll run interference for you? That's so selfless of you, Tristan," Duke deadpanned, the effect lost when skilled hands assaulted him from both sides and his head fell back on Tristan's shoulder.

"I am _not _a weasel," Joey retorted, shoving Tristan's mouth away and stealing the spot he'd been working on their reunited lover's throat. His teeth connected, and Duke gasped.

"Are too," Tristan insisted, and retaliated, resulting in a high-volume swear word when powerful fingertips pinched sensitive skin.

"What happened to all the damn _puppy _jokes?" Joey reached around Duke's shoulder and flicked the rim of Tristan's ear, earning a yelp.

"Dogs only come into heat _twice a year_." Tristan stole his spot back, kissing Duke's pulse-point while Joey was speaking, then smirked at the older blonde man. "_You, _on the other hand. You're in heat all the damn _time_."

"Weasels aren't—!" Joey tried to argue, when a slender hand snatched his chin and jerked his head down to blink in surprise at a pair of narrowed, impatient green eyes.

Duke glared at him. "Did we forget something?" He pinched the stubborn point of Joey's jaw and shook it, gently. The other's warm chocolate eyes flicked up, presumably to touch base with Tristan's, and Duke imagined that the two were sharing a sheepish look.

"If I don't get to play, I'm getting out," He pouted, and then reached back to smack Tristan lightly when he felt the taller man shrug. "jackass."

Tristan snickered, Joey leaned in and kissed his cheek in apology, and then the talk between them quieted, as the sluice of water slowly washed the traces of Tristan's aftershave from the air.


End file.
